Referees get help keeping time

MILWAUKEE {AP} National Basketball Association referees are getting some help from a new timing system that operates at the speed of light and was created by a referee whose hobby is amateur radio.

When it was first introduced there were some kinks to work out.

"Early on, during the exhibition season in certain places, people that were taking (concession) orders in the stands were on the same frequency as the referees and were starting the clock," said Rod Thorn, the league's senior vice president of basketball operations. "We took care of that."

For the most part, however, the league has been pleased with the new timing system that was patented for use in sports arenas in 1994 by Precision Time Systems of Hillsborough, N.C.

"It's another tool to get the time as close to perfect as possible," Thorn told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The system has been in use in several college conferences, including the Big 12, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Pacific 10 and the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The North Carolina high school association has implemented the system for its state tournament.

The system is the creation of Mike Costabile, a former NBA referee and present NCAA Division I referee with an interest in amateur radio.

"The system doesn't eliminate the need for timekeepers," Costabile said. "That would take the human element out of the game. What it does is eliminate human error at the end of games."

The key to the system is a small computer belt pack, about the size of a pack of cigarettes, that is connected to the arena's clock. When the clock is to start, all three referees push a button on the belt pack and the signal registered first is the one that actually trips the clock.

The timekeeper who is seated courtside also starts the clock in the conventional manual manner. The referees also wear small microphones that are tuned to a specific whistle frequency and stop the clock when the whistle is blown.

The system operates at the speed of light, and that helps eliminate the slight human delay that may occur when a timekeeper starts or stops the clock.

"The odds are better that four people will start the clock at the right time than one will," said Costabile, who refereed in the NBA for four seasons beginning in 1989. Timekeepers in the league have given the system a "thumbs up" so far.

Bob Wanek, the statistical crew chief for Milwaukee Bucks games at the Bradley Center, said there had been only a couple of minor glitches involving the system so far.

Longtime Chicago Bulls scoreboard operator Tom Wiscarz said the system is helpful when a team is inbounding the ball under its own basket. In such situations, it was not unusual to have an obstructed view of the play which would hinder the proper starting of the clock.

"I might have five or six players between me and the ball," Wiscarz said.

The NBA officials experimented with the system during their training camp in July of 1998. The league's operations committee recommended to commissioner David Stern that the green light be given to the system for this season and Stern agreed.